Syncronised Swimming

Tomorrow is the first day of the Syncronised Swimming (syncro for short since that's a bit of a mouthfull...) British Championships. There are quite a few parts to the competition, duets, solos, tech and free teams and combo teams. The teams events are pretty much the most impressive ones. Technical and Free TeamsTech teams are a three minute routine with eight swimmers, where certain technical elements have to be included in a certain order, or else the team gets marks taken off. Free teams again have eight people, buy can be up to four minutes long and can be choreographed however the coach chooses. After the routine has been performed eight judges rank it out of ten, 4 focusing on artistic impression and 4 focussing on the technical merit of the routine. The two events are equally weighted and the two scores are combined, giving an overall winner.

Tomorrow is the first day of the Syncronised Swimming (syncro for short since that's a bit of a mouthfull...) British Championships. There are quite a few parts to the competition, duets, solos, tech and free teams and combo teams. The teams events are pretty much the most impressive ones. Technical and Free TeamsTech teams are a three minute routine with eight swimmers, where certain technical elements have to be included in a certain order, or else the team gets marks taken off. Free teams again have eight people, buy can be up to four minutes long and can be choreographed however the coach chooses. After the routine has been performed eight judges rank it out of ten, 4 focusing on artistic impression and 4 focussing on the technical merit of the routine. The two events are equally weighted and the two scores are combined, giving an overall winner.

Combination Teams This is how it sounds, it involves a combination of things, but the major difference between this and the others is the fact that not everyone in the water must be swimming, and there are ten swimmers, not eight. It must include, pieces performed together as a team, a solo section, where only one person swims whilst the others swim at the sides, and one or more duet sections, where only two members swim at any one time. Last year it had to be 5 minutes long, but this year it has to be 4:30.

Thankyou. The GB team, and the Chinease National team have come to give us a display, and a club from Bejing and a club from Italy have actually come to compete, although no one stands a chance if tonights practice is anything to go on, the bejing team were incredible!

Combination Teams This is how it sounds, it involves a combination of things, but the major difference between this and the others is the fact that not everyone in the water must be swimming, and there are ten swimmers, not eight. It must include, pieces performed together as a team, a solo section, where only one person swims whilst the others swim at the sides, and one or more duet sections, where only two members swim at any one time. Last year it had to be 5 minutes long, but this year it has to be 4:30.

I can't even begin to imagine how hard that is to achieve. I love to swim, but I'm just a breast stroke fan, on my own. So... do have two swimmers have to swim in synchronicity for 4.30 mins?

I can't even begin to imagine how hard that is to achieve. I love to swim, but I'm just a breast stroke fan, on my own. So... do have two swimmers have to swim in synchronicity for 4.30 mins?

No, not exactly, it's more like two swimmers have to syncronise for about 40 seconds and then eight or so have to syncronise for about 3 minutes... It's in noway easy and people often assume it's an easy or girly sport.

If you want to look into it, the best teams to watch on YouTube are the Russian team and the Spanish team. The Russians are technically perfect, and I genuinely mean perfect, they generally get three or more tens, but the Spanish are artistically incredible, probably more excitng for someone who doesn't know the sport to watch.

I shall explain duets and solos if anyone would like, but they are essentially the same as the teams, only with only one or two people. And everyone does a tech solo/duet and then only the top eight or ten can qualify to perform their free duet/solo. The technical elements are also different to the team ones, and the routines are only between two and a half abd three and a half minutes long, free routines being the longer ones.